United Nations: Baerbock hands over General Assembly presidency to successor

Annalena Baerbock has handed over the ceremonial gavel of the UN General Assembly after one year in the post, leaving the United Nations with what she described as "mixed feelings." In New York, she symbolically transferred the gavel to her successor, Bangladesh's Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, who will preside over the 193-member assembly for the next year.

Baerbock used her farewell speech to push back against claims that the United Nations has become irrelevant or is failing. Nearly 81 years after its founding, she said, no country in the world would be better off if the organization did not exist. She did not name the United States or Russia, although US President Donald Trump has repeatedly made similar criticisms since returning to office.

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with mixed feelings

Her defense of the organization came with a sharp qualification: the UN urgently needs reform. Baerbock also warned that time is running short for several key projects, including the Sustainable Development Goals. She ended on a note of perseverance, referring to this year's football World Cup: "Never give up before the game is over."

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Never give up before the game is over.

Baerbock took over the largely protocolary position after Germany's 2025 federal election. During her term, she helped oversee the process to find a successor to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, whose term ends in December. That role also drew criticism. Five women and three men are currently candidates for the UN's top post. Baerbock ruled out running herself, while the informal rotation system points to Latin America after Guterres, who is Portuguese.

She will now become a professor at Columbia University in New York. "I am a private individual now," Baerbock told the dpa news agency, saying she planned to step back from public life for the time being.

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I am a private individual now.